I Never Considered Stepping Away - Buckley

By Peter Branigan

14 February 2018

The SSE Airtricity League kicks off this Friday, and there are some mouth watering games to look forward to. Bohemians host Shamrock Rovers at Dalymount, while across the city, Richmond Park will be the venue for St Patrick’s Athletic and last season’s double winners Cork.

City picked up another trophy over the weekend, as they beat Dundalk in the President’s Cup Final. Pats manager Liam Buckley tells FM104 Sport’sPeter Branigan that it’s a great test to get on the opening day of the season.

‘It’s great to welcome the champions. League tables don’t lie. They were the best team last season.’

‘But we’re not looking back, we’re looking forward, and we’re going to bring the game to them on Friday. We’ve had a good pre-season. We picked up a couple of knocks, but the lads have been training well, and we’re very fit, and we’re raring to go.’

2017 was a tougher season than expected for the Inchicore men, and they were still caught up in a relegation dog fight on the last day of the season. But Buckley says he never thought about stepping away from his job.

‘I don’t think like that. In fairness to the boys, they stepped up, we finished mid-table, and we’ve moved on.’

For the new season, Buckley has made some big signings, most notably Simon Madden and James Doona. The Pats manager was surprised to pick up the former Rovers pair.

‘I wasn’t sure of the rationale of them being let go by Rovers, but I’m absolutely delighted.

‘Simon has buckets of energy, and he’s a great lad. We had James at underage, but he’s developed a huge amount since then. I’ve no doubt he’ll score plenty of goals this season.’

‘Mick (Leahy) can play out from the back, he did that when he was at UCD. He’s a top player, and I’ve no doubt he’ll fit in very well in our group.’

‘We’ve signed well, and kept what we wanted from last year’s squad.’

The League of Ireland has changed massively in terms of educational opportunities. UCD were at the forefront of the movement, for obvious reasons, but now many clubs have a connection with a third level institution, and The Richmond Park side are no different.

'We have a great record in St Pats, and we always encourage our players to get an education. We have a link with Maynooth University.'

'Sean Horan and Jamie McGrath moved to Dundalk with degrees. Jake Carroll (currently with Cambridge United) went to England with a proper education. Not everybody is going to make it in football, so we encourage out younger players to make use of that link.'

Buckley suggests that the players can help to push Pats up the table, but he gives an honest assessment of where they’re at, in terms of silverware.

'I feel they probably will be pegged back a little this year, but let’s cut to the chase; Dundalk, Rovers, and Cork have all the resources. They’re going to be the top three.'

The Premier Division is back to a ten team League for the first time since 2011, but Buckley doesn’t seem to convinced it’s a positive step.

‘It does be a little bit questionable that you could end up playing a team six times in the year, if you got them in the FAI Cup and the League Cup. It might take a little bit of the edge of a derby off, but we’ll just have to wait and see.’